Upchin vs Forest

Two different bets

Forest has been doing this since 2014, and the mechanic is theirs: you plant a tree, it grows while you work, and it dies if you walk away. More than two million real trees have been funded through their partner along the way, which that partner confirms on its own site — so that part is not marketing, and this page is not going to imply otherwise.

Forest blocks apps now, which its reputation has not caught up with. Deep Focus is in the free tier and it blocks.

The bet is where the two part. Forest bets that if focusing is pleasant, you will do it. Upchin bets on the evening when it is not pleasant at all.

A word about the table, because it is very lopsided: it measures what Upchin does, and Forest is not trying to be that. Thirteen crosses say first of all that the two apps are not aiming at the same problem — not that Forest is missing thirteen things. The table carries the date it was checked.

What Forest has that Upchin does not

It is free, and the blocking is in the free tier. On a subscription, Upchin is free and fully featured for 7 days; then it is paid, and you can cancel at any time.

It makes focusing enjoyable, which is not nothing and is why it has lasted twelve years. Plant Together lets a whole room of people share one tree and one stake. Nothing in Upchin is enjoyable in that way; it is closer to a lock than a game, and deliberately so.

It runs on far more iPhones. iOS 16 where we ask for iOS 26, ten versions apart — and you are the one who pays for it if your iPhone does not reach that — plus the iPad, Android and desktop browser extensions.

It plants real trees, more than two million, confirmed on the partner's own site, funded from app revenue rather than from a donation you make. They also point out themselves, unasked, that tree-by-tree verification does not exist.

If your choice is between feeling good about your attention and being held to it, Forest is the best-made version of the first option.

Protection that runs when you have not started anything

Forest's blocking lives inside something you started. Deep Focus blocks apps during a focus session: you plant the tree, and the protection exists for as long as the tree grows. Their Time Guard adds windows outside sessions, which is the right idea, but in the free tier it covers one app or site; beyond that it needs the subscription. And their custom Allow Lists are scoped to focus sessions, not to Time Guard windows — which is exactly what the "app list per schedule" row asks for.

Upchin has nothing to start. Delay Lock watches the apps you chose all day: you open one, you get your grace period, then the door closes for the length you set and reopens on its own. Motion lock arms itself. A Schedule slot opens and closes by itself.

That is where the real difference sits, and it is not about power: protection is the phone's resting state rather than something you have to remember to switch on. Planting a tree assumes you feel like it; at eleven at night, when starting a session no longer occurs to you, that is exactly what is missing.

A detail from the same family: Forest does have a Home Screen widget — their release notes fix display problems with it, in Chinese, Japanese and French. But nothing published describes starting a block from it, and the cross on that row says that, not that the widget does not exist.

A block that is not one tap from giving up

Forest is honest about its way out, and we will quote it rather than characterise it: the only exit is to tap Give Up, and the tree dies. You cannot switch Deep Focus off mid-session — but you can always end it.

The cost of leaving is therefore symbolic: a dead tree in a gallery, which Forest kindly describes as an honest record rather than a verdict. For many people that is enough, and it is a gentler design than ours, deliberately.

Upchin's Schedule slots do not offer that tap. A running slot can be interrupted for five minutes, then it resumes on its own. You set it calmly in advance; the moment you want it gone is the moment your judgement is at its lowest, and protection you can end at that moment was never protection. Five minutes is enough for a real phone call. It is not enough to lose the evening.

Upchin also has a trigger Forest does not have at all, and for once we can show it rather than report a silence: Apple's privacy label for their app declares no location data. There is nothing there to fire on. Upchin's Motion lock reacts to the walk itself: GPS confirms displacement of more than 5 metres and only counts it when the margin of error on the reading is smaller than that distance. It is for the walk to the station and the supermarket aisle, the moments you would never have planted a tree for.

Ads, data, and the language

This is the widest gap on the page, and the one we would check first in your place.

Forest's free tier shows advertising — their words, occasional ads, never during an active focus session, and the subscription removes them. Apple's age rating for the iPhone app lists advertising among its contents.

The data side is heavier. Forest's App Store privacy label declares contact info and usage data used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies, and six categories linked to your identity. Their iOS privacy policy names Firebase, AppsFlyer, the Meta pixel and TikTok conversion tracking, and calls some of that selling and sharing under California law — while their home page says your data is not sold to third parties. Both statements are theirs; the policy is the one that governs.

Upchin shows no advertising at any tier, has no advertising business to feed, and draws its charts inside Apple's privacy container, where Screen Time figures never leave the device. We are not saying Forest is dishonest: we are saying its bill is legible, and that it is there.

Two shorter rows to finish. Nothing published describes their block screen — the only uses of "custom" at Forest point to tags and allow lists — where Upchin shows up to ten sentences you typed yourself. And Forest ships in fourteen languages against our twenty-one, with no watch app.

The short version

Forest grows something while you work. Upchin closes a door and does not ask what you think about it.

Forest if enjoyment is what keeps you going, if you are not going to pay, or if your device does not go up to iOS 26 — and if the idea that your time funds real trees matters to you, because it is true.

Upchin if you have already watched a few trees die and opened the app anyway. What you are looking for then is protection that was running before you thought about it, and that does not stop on a tap.